Special Issue on Automatic Suppression Systems

Abstract

Automatic suppression systems have been in use for over 100 years, however a detailed understanding of their characteristics and behavior is not currently available for incorporation into fire modeling. Better insight is needed, including detailed measurements of sprinkler and nozzle flow, further development of flow models for incorporation into numerical fire models, better understanding of the interaction of the suppression system with the environment it is used in as well as the fire it is meant to control and of course, improved ways to evaluate its effectiveness in the field. This special issue covers a range of research topics currently being investigated to provide this needed insight into automatic suppression systems.To experimentally and numerically characterize sprinklers as well as creating and validating models to describe them, Zhou et al.[1] collected near and far field measurements of spray patterns of an upright sprinkler using a laser based shadow imaging system. Sikanen et al.[2] present work done to predict the dynamics of water mist sprays using FDS and Iannantuoni et al. [3] focused on the assessment of water mist sprays using OpenFOAM. Ma et al. [4] uses an analogy between ignition and suppression to model extinguishing concentrations for clean agents.To understanding system design, Ejrup [5] presents evaluative work on the potential trade-offs and the consequences that use of suppression systems in tunnels could offer compared to traditional prescriptive design. Blanchard et al. [6] conducted an experimental and numerical study of a water mist suppression system in a tunnel, with the aim of understanding the interaction of mist, smoke and ventilation.To characterize the effectiveness of suppression systems, Arvidson [7] conducted a series of large scale tests on the effectiveness of both traditional deluge water spray and deluge high pressure water mist suppression systems for protection of a freight truck fire in ro-ro cargo decks. He determined the fire control capabilities of both systems using heat release rate measurements. Frank et al. [8] studied sprinkler data from New Zealand's Fire Service incident reports to evaluate its suitability for risk-informed fire safety design. They present proposals to improve the collecting and reporting process such that the value of future data is improved.It is hoped that this special issue brings attention to the ongoing efforts to develop a comprehensive understanding of suppression systems, from component design to use in the field, to so that the fire community can have valid tools to incorporate suppression systems into fire modeling.